Sunday, April 27, 2008

ISSUES FROM CHILDREN'S POINT OF VIEW

Recently I had an opportunity to attend a summer camp held for children between 10 and 16 years of age. One of the topic was movie making. The children were asked to write a story for making the movie. Out of many stories, two stories were selected.
THE FIRST STORY.
In the first story there is one child in a family. She is very brilliant and comes out first in her class with very high marks. Her parents don't let her play, watch TV and always insist that she studies all the time. If she gets 95 marks they want her to get 98 marks and if she gets 98 marks, they want her to get 100 and so on. They want her to do better and better all the time. The girl becomes depressed and very soon her marks come down drastically. The parents become very angry and they shout and scold her. The child's marks goes further down. The parents didn't know what to do. Finally, they take her to a psychiatrist. After talking to the girl, the psychiatrist finds out what was the real reason for the child's poor performance. He tells the parents not to harass the child and let her play, watch TV etc. The parents realise their mistake and stop harassing the child to study all the time. The child is happy and her marks start improving. SECOND STORY
In the second story, two small children see their parents not helping the old grand father. The parents trouble the grand father and don't give him food in time. He was made to wait till they finished eating. They don't buy his medicines in time. They don't listen to his requests and they shouted at him for silly things. After some years the grand father dies and the children grow up. They are now working and their parenst have become old and dependent on the children. The children who have seen their parents ill treat the grandfather, also start misbehaving with their parents and treat them very badly.
I hope all parents will understand the powerful lessons behind these stories written by children.

Friday, April 25, 2008

INSIDE THE ICU(continued)

I told the nurse I was perfectly alright and wanted to be discharged. She said that the doctor will come shortly and he will decide. I waited for the doctor and he took a long time to come. In the meanwhile a patient died in the ICU and they removed the body very silently. The old woman continued to make terrible sounds. I waited and waited and finally the cardiac doctor came about 11'o clock. I told him my wish to be discharged. He went through my history sheet and told me that I will be discharged after undergoing one more test called the ECHO TEST. I consented. After some more waiting a ward boy came with a wheel chair and told me to sit in it. After I sat, he pushed the wheel chair to another room. There I was made to lie on a bed. The doctor started checking my heart beat with an instument. After checking for several minutes he said he could not find any problem and therefore, I should undergo the treadmill test the next day. In the meanwhile he arranged for me to be shifted to an ordinary room. After several hours of waiting, the nurse and the ward boy came with the wheel chair, made me sit in it, and pushed it to the room alloted to me. My children joined me there and I was very happy to see them. I thought I was going to die without saying good bye to anybody, but there I was sitting and chatting with my children as though nothing had happened. God has spared my life for some more time. I wonder for what.